CITYWIDE

MOVEMENT TO CHANGE TAX SAVINGS PROGRAM BUOYED BY REPORT

The movement to alter or abolish the city’s tax savings program created to spur housing development is gaining steam following a report released yesterday by comptroller William Thompson. Mr. Thompson’s analysis of the city’s 421-a tax incentive program showed that most of the benefits have subsidized luxury housing, much of it in Manhattan. The analysis said that last year that subsidy cost the city $320 million in tax revenues and that relatively little affordable housing had been financed compared to the amount tax breaks handed out. With strong demand for housing driving the rapidly rising real estate market, the annual value of 421-a tax breaks has increased by about 400% since 1998. Mayor Bloomberg recently appointed a public/private task force to evaluate the 441-a program and recommend changes that would modernize the program. That report is due this fall.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

CITY WITHDRAWS APPEAL OF GIULIANI AIDE’S 9/11 HEALTH CLAIM

A high-ranking Giuliani administration official who suffered severe respiratory distress after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack planned to move forward with his workers’ compensation claim after the city lifted its appeal of his case yesterday. A deputy mayor and top aide to Mayor Giuliani, Rudy Washington, was on scene when the first World Trade Center tower collapsed in a plume of debris and dust, and he played a role in ground zero operations for weeks after the 2001 attack.

– Associated Press

MANHATTAN BUSES TO GET SECURITY CAMERAS

Hundreds of Manhattan buses will be outfitted with surveillance cameras as part of a security upgrade prompted by bomb attacks on public transit in London and Madrid. New York City Transit officials said the initiative will begin to bring New York into line with other big cities that have put cameras on buses and trains in recent years.

– Associated Press

POLICE BLOTTER

BROOKLYN WOMAN STABBED AND KILLED

A Brooklyn woman was stabbed and killed yesterday in her Brooklyn apartment, police said. Patricia Torres, 25, was found around 11 a.m. with a stab wound in her chest inside her apartment on East 26th Street in Sheepshead Bay. Torres was found by her 6-year-old son, and a neighbor called 911, police said. As of last night, no arrests were made.

– Special to the Sun

ARREST MADE IN FATAL LONG ISLAND BEATING; VICTIM IDENTIFIED

Police have made an arrest in the fatal beating of a man whose body was discovered behind a Long Island bar, Suffolk County Police said. Daniel Callahan, 37, was arrested Monday as he was preparing to conduct a youth soccer clinic in Lindenhurst, said police Officer Dara Caramanico. He is currently homeless, she said. Police also identified the body that was found Sunday morning behind the Cafe Bada Bing bar in Port Jefferson Station. William Moschinger, 46, of Selden, was identified through his fingerprints.

– Associated Press

IN THE COURTS

NO VERDICT IN HERALD SQUARE SUBWAY BOMB PLOT TRIAL

A jury ended its first day of deliberations without a verdict yesterday at the trial of a Pakistani immigrant accused of plotting to blow up one of the city’s busiest subway stations. The jurors were to resume deliberating today in federal court in Brooklyn. Shahawar Matin Siraj, 23, was arrested on the eve of the 2004 Republican National Convention on charges he wanted to attack a subway station in Herald Square, a dense Manhattan shopping district that includes the Macy’s flagship department store.

– Associated Press

DRIVER CHARGED WITH LEAVING SCHOOLGIRL, 5, ALONE ON BUS IN QUEENS

A school bus driver has been charged with endangering the welfare of a child after she left a preschooler alone on the bus while she ran errands for more than an hour, prosecutors said yesterday. Diana Cuartas picked up Valentina Pena, 5, from a day care center in Queens at about 10:30 a.m. Monday and was supposed to drop her off at her home, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said. A witness saw the girl alone on the locked bus just after noon, Mr. Brown said.

– Associated Press

APPEALS COURT SHOWS LITTLE PATIENCE FOR TIMING OF NYCLU APPEAL

The New York Civil Liberties Union got a brush off from a federal appeals court yesterday when it sought to have a federal judge make public his secret court ruling regarding the government’s wiretapping program. A three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals expressed skepticism that the NYCLU had proper standing to challenge the ruling of a U.S. district judge, Thomas McAvoy, in a terrorism case.

– Associated Press

EX-POLICE OFFICER PLEADS NOT GUILTY TO CONSPIRACY CHARGES A former city police officer pleaded not guilty yesterday to charges that she conspired with her uncle to steal cocaine from drug stash houses in Manhattan. Kirsix De La Cruz, 36, a police officer from 1995 until she resigned in late April, entered the plea to conspiracy charges during a brief appearance in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

– Associated Press

STATEWIDE

CLINTON: ADD ETHANOL, CUT FOREIGN OIL BY 50%

WASHINGTON – Senator Clinton is calling for cutting American dependence on foreign oil by 8 million barrels a day by the year 2025 – a goal she says can be met with more ethanol-based fuel and a $50 billion fund for new energy research. Mrs. Clinton, who is up for reelection this year and is also a potential 2008 presidential candidate, outlined her energy goals yesterday. “No longer can we all pass the buck and blame things beyond our control. It’s time for everyone, from the president and our oil companies to each of us, to adopt a virtual revolution in our thinking about energy and act on what we now know,” Mrs. Clinton said in prepared remarks.

– Associated Press

COUNTIES SEEK TO INCREASE GAS TAX SAVINGS

ALBANY – Counties may further cut costs at the gas pumps this summer now that the state has capped its tax on gasoline at 8 cents per gallon. But it’s not as easy a call as it might seem – even in an election year. Here’s how it may affect you: The state sales tax is 4%, or 4 cents on a dollar. If gas is $2 a gallon, the tax is 8 cents. If it’s $3 a gallon, the tax is 12 cents now, but when the cap takes effect June 1, the tax will be only 8 cents, saving you 4 cents a gallon.

– Associated Press

BROOKLYN

BROOKLYN RACE NARROWS TO FOUR

A Brooklyn congressional candidate, Nicholas Perry, dropped out of the race yesterday in order to run for re-election to the Assembly seat he’s held since 1992, according to published reports. Messages left for Mr. Perry at legislative office and home were not returned. Also running to replace Christopher Owens are City Council members, Yvette Clarke, David Yassky, and a state senator, Carl Andrews.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun